A Survey Of Pragmatic Transfer In Refusals By Chinese Learners Of English

Refusals, a kind of face-threatening act, are frequently used in daily life. It isdifficult for non-native speakers to perform such a complex speech act as refusals. Inorder to avoid pragmatic failure, it is necessary to study pragmatic transfer in refusalspeech acts.The present study is undertaken from cross-cultural perspective within thetheoretical framework of Mao’s relative face construct and Hofstede’s culturaldimensions. The purpose of the present study is to identify different refusal strategiesadopted by American group and Chinese group and to investigate pragmatic transferamong Chinese English learners. The participants consist of three groups: nativespeakers of English in the United States; Chinese graduate students majoring inEnglish and Chinese students majoring in finance. The instrument is a discoursecompletion test adapted from the one used in the study of Beebe, Takahashi andUliss-Weltz (1990). It is composed of12situations in four types: three requests, threeeinvitations, three offers and three suggestions. The findings show that both Chineseand American are concerned about politeness in making refusals. However, because ofcultural distinction, they differ in the selection of refusal strategies and the content ofsemantic formulas. Besides, social status and the initiating act of refusals such asrequests, suggestions, invitations and offers also take an effect on their refusalstrategies. The evidence of pragmatic transfer is also found among Chinese learners ofEnglish.